‘I was overwhelmed and astounded by the synoptic view of this 600-year-old city’

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‘I was overwhelmed and astounded by the synoptic view of this 600-year-old city’

By - Mukti Jain

Updated: Oct 20, 2018, 18:10 IST

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Life is architecture and architecture is the mirror of life, said IM Pei. Same stands true for ‘Ahmedabad Walls’ an exhibition of aerial photographs of the first world heritage city of India - Ahmedabad by Robert D Stephens of RMA Architects, a studio with branches in Mumbai and Boston.

The exhibition that gets underway at Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum on October 21 and would continue till November 20 also featuring Scottish urban planner Patrick Geddes’ essay ‘Notes on Ahmedabad’ will be open on all days from 10 am to 5 pm except Wednesday and public holidays. For those particularly interested in Ahmedabad’s rich architecture and heritage, a walkthrough of selected works with Robert has been organised on October 21, November 3 and 17 from 12 noon to 4.30 pm.

Relevant for youth

“It is especially relevant for the vibrant architectural and urban design community, including professionals and students at institutes such as CEPT, IIM-A and NID,” said Robert, who has conducted similar exhibitions on Mumbai and Chennai, in a release.

Talking to Ahmedabad Times, Robert says, “It is an exhibition of 23 aerial photographs taken by me over the past four years through commercial flights while I was flying in and out of Ahmedabad for work purpose every two weeks. I was overwhelmed and astounded by the synoptic view of this 600-year-old city from 10,000 feet above.”

Robert has also done a series on Delhi but it is yet to be exhibited. He is also working on a similar narrative on Gurgaon and a few other places.

City’s unique amalgamation of old and modern

On what struck him the most about Ahmedabad, he said, “Majority of the flights when they take off, they do so in the south-west direction over the old city. Though its density is often talked about, what I particularly find interesting is the kind of juxtaposition of antiquity and contemporary interventions of architecture that is not seen in Mumbai or Delhi. At one end you have the magnificent mosques and Hutheesing temple and on the other buildings like IIM-A (by Louis Kahn) and Le Corbusier’s works like Sanskar Kendra and Mill Owners’ Association building.”

Talking about his favorite building, Robert said, “It’s IIM-A. When you visit the exhibition, you can see that 11 images are from the walled city while 12 are from outside the ancient walls of Ahmedabad as it expanded including one image from IIM-A.”

Air pollution documentation in Ahmedabad

Interestingly, the collector and principal of RMA Architects, Robert has indicated pollution levels of Ahmedabad at the time of taking the photograph. “Ahmedabad has been a little bit more difficult and complex. Because the history of air pollution documentation here is not as simple as that of Mumbai which has the most documented history of air pollution. The means of documentation have changed drastically over the past few years.”

Understanding heritage

Jayshree Lalbhai, Trustee, Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum, stated in a release, “This exhibition aims to help us appreciate the rich heritage of our city. What makes it unique is that it is seen through the eyes of Geddes, an expert hailing from Scotland, another great country with brilliant architecture. Robert Stephens, the artist, has amalgamated the new and the old city in a visual manner that one almost travels back in 1915 with Geddes to witness the architectural richness of Ahmedabad. It is exhibitions like these that help one understand and acknowledge heritage so much more than usual.”

Talking about works of Gedde which are also on display, Robert said, “I wanted to have a historical narrative with these images but I didn’t know what that would be. I almost accidentally stumbled upon Geddes’s notes on Ahmedabad from 1915 which are very specific. He is going around city’s walls portion by portion. I realised that the images illustrate the journey he took around the city over three days. It’s kind of 100 years later, its illustration of his circumvallation of 1915.”

Between 1915 and 1919, Geddes had written a series of exhaustive town planning reports on at least 18 Indian cities. He believed civic beauty in India existed at all levels, from humble homes and simple shrines to palaces magnificent and temples sublime.

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